1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data networks and, more specifically, the present invention relates to transferring routing data in a data network.
2. Background Information
Data networks allow many computers or network resources to be connected together over short and long distances for countless numbers of purposes. There are many types of topologies that may be used when linking together the resources of a network. For example, resources in a network may be connected in a star configuration, a bus configuration, a ring configuration, or a combination of these topologies. As such, there may be more than one path from one box to another box in the network. In addition, the topology of the network may dynamically change as links in the network may sometimes be introduced or removed without notice.
In many networks, information is routed throughout the network using packets. Routing protocols of the network dynamically configure and distribute information regarding the topology of the network among the boxes, such as for example routers, in the network. There are many known routing protocols for distributing routing data among the routers of a network regarding the topology of a network. Some of these known protocols include Routing Information Protocol (RIP), the Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Distance Vector Multicast Routing Protocol (DVMRP), Multicast Open Shortest Path First (MOSPF), Protocol-Independent Multicast (PIM), to name a few. In OSPF, the routing data that is transferring among the routers is included in a link state advertisement (LSA).
By sharing the information regarding the topology of the network, or routing data, the boxes in the network are able to learn of all of the various paths throughout the network to communicate with one another. The routing data each box receives may be used as a basis when determining a "best" path for forwarding packets through the network from the source box to the destination box. Naturally, it is important that the routing data received by each box or router in the network is correct. Without accurate routing data, the data packets that are transmitted throughout the network may not reach their intended destination.
A concern for network engineers is that the transferring of the routing data among the routers on boxes in the network and may be subject to attack. For instance, an intruder may intercept packets containing routing data and modify the routing data to disrupt network communications. In another example, the routing data contained in the packets may be corrupted because of other problems in the links such as for example faulty communications lines. In either case, incorrect routing data transferred among the boxes in the network may have the undesired consequence of disrupting network communications.